A catch phrase will go here soon.

Meet Michelle Bombshell McGee,other women between Sandra Bullock/Jesse James http://bit.ly/michellebombshell

3/18/2010
The curse of the best actress rides on with Sandra Bullock 


Best Actress Curse?

The break-up of Sandra Bullock and Jesse James happened just two weeks after Bullock won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

This has only fueled speculation about a 'Curse of the Best Actress Oscar' that is gaining steam. Since2000, seven former winners have seen the break-up of their marriages and/or long-term relationships. The theory was first advanced by writer Kate Torgovnick of The Frisky.

Among those affected are:

This list doesn't include Nicole Kidman, who won in 2002 just one year after divorcing Tom Cruise.

The daily London video! #supercute!!!

3/18/2010

[wpvideo pfRFCjNW]

BRuTAL VIDEO: Tiger Woods on South Park http://bit.ly/tigerpark

3/18/2010
South Park is brutal… but is how we, as a society, deal with societies most brutal hypocrisy, insanity and irony. http://www.mahalo.com/tiger-woods-south-park

AMAZING OPPORTUNITY: Mahalo Seeks VP of Community Development

3/17/2010
Mahalo Seeks VP of Community Development

Mahalo is a top 200 website that received over 15M unique visitors in February 2010. Our mission is to create "the world's largest content site with the largest and most active base of contributors." You can think of us as 1/3rd Wikipedia/About.com, 1/3rd Yahoo Answers and 1/3rd Google Search/Delicious. We're trying to take the three main modes of knowledge-gathering on the internet–Content, Q&A and Search–and combine them into one seamless product. No one has ever done this, and we're only 50% of the way there ourselves.

In the role of VP of Community Development, you would work directly with the CEO, Jason Calacanis, to develop strategies and best practices around contributor acquisition, writer education and community development.

Here are some examples of problems we might ask you to solve:
============================
1. How would you integrate our topic page on the iPad (http://www.mahalo.com/ipad) with our Answers community tag page for iPad (http://www.mahalo.com/answers/tag/ipad)?
2. How would you grow and inspire our team of Vertical Managers, who earn 15% of the revenue from the 3,000 pages they manage?
3. We're currently producing over 250 How To Articles a week–how would you add a zero to that number?
4. We currently share revenue on our Mahalo Answers question threads–what are the pros and cons of doing this?
5. Our virtual currency is currently one of the three main motivators in our community–the other two being fun and recognition. How should a site like ours balance cash, recognition and fun as rewards? In what other way(s) would you motivate our community?
6. How should we evolve the design of our Topic and Answers pages? Who has the best topic pages on the internet today and why? Who has the best answer threads on the internet today and why?

The ideal person we're looking for has the following traits:
============================
a) They inspire the people around them to do great things.
b) They love to debate, are opinionated and look forward to creatively solving problems.
c) They are resilient and resourceful when facing challenges.
d) They are hard-working, helpful to other team members and they are respected because they "bring it every day."
e) They are honest and introspective, with the ability to admit mistakes and move on quickly.
f) They are transparent, humble and willing to share their ideas and skills with others.
g) They are able to come up with multiple innovative solutions to problems.
h) They are organized and able to lead a large, distributed work force.
i) They are positive and go about their mission with a sense of joy and fun.
j) They have demonstrated their ability to grow online communities in the past, and have worked well curating the unique, and sometimes quirky, attributes of freelance writers.

Some additional details on Mahalo:
============================
– Mahalo offers solid compensation and (hopefully!) valuable stock options.
– Mahalo has cool benefits, like a private chef who cooks a healthy, organic breakfasts, lunches and two afternoon snacks that are brought to your desk at three and five PM. We also do people's laundry, wash their cars and provide personal fitness training in the backyard. You will get healthy working at this company!
– Mahalo is a flat organization without politics. We aspire to be a pure meritocracy where people are given responsibilities based on performance–not their age, who they suck up to or where they went to school.
– We wont insult or belittle you during our interview process by asking you questions like "why are manhole covers round?"
– Our core product hit breakeven this year and we have many years of capital in the bank. We are fully funded and, with hard work and dedication, should be able to reach our goal of being a Top 25 Site in the USA within the next three years (hopefully with your help!).
– We're humbled by the list of amazing people who have invested in our company, including Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Sequoia Capital, News Corporation, CBS, Fred Wilson, Mark Pincus, Matt Coffin, John Miller, Sandy Climan, Hubert Burda and many others.

If you're interested in this position, please send a cover letter with some of your thoughts on the six questions/problems we raised above (numbered one to six) as well as where you rank on the personal traits we bring up in the lettered section above (A through J). Write as much or as little as you like–we'll read it all, and if you're in line with our culture, we will have you in for coffee/tea.

More Details:
This is a full-time position in our office (Santa Monica)
Salary based on experience (we're hoping you have 3-10 years in community building)
Send your responses, cover letter and resume to vpcd@mahalo.com

I'm on @jack's SQUARE!!!!! Can't wait to start taking transactions!

3/17/2010

No, I'm not stepping down as CEO of Mahalo (duh?).

3/16/2010
Now three journalists/bloggers have contacted me asking if I'm stepping down as CEO of Mahalo. Someone must be looking to stir the pot I guess.

My official response: 

Exit Mahalo?! That is absurd, as we are crushing it and firing on all cylinders.

I've never been more excited about Mahalo! Perhaps this rumor started because I've been interviewing folks for a President/COO slot to help us keep up with the growth.

I am NOT giving up my CEO slot EVER. I have a Steve Jobs/Larry Ellison approach to these things: I'm in charge. Forever. End of discussion.

Our virtual currency is making the site wildly addictive to growing base of contributors that will enable us to build the largest knowledge (aka content) site in the world that combines: Wikipedia/About.com, Yahoo Answers and Google Search/Delicious/StumbleUpon. No one has ever figured out how to blend those three types of services–content, Q&A and curated search–into one product. We are very close to figuring it out.

When we figure it out we will have something really special that folks will call Wikipedia 2.0, Yahoo+About or maybe what Google would build if they owned Yahoo Answers and Wikipedia. Something like that. :-)

Example: 

This simple question will wind up making the asker M$100 (US$75) and the person answering it M$200 (US$150).
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/fashion/is-there-any-uk-equivalent-to-snorg-tees
http://www.mahalo.com/payments/adsense/question/is-there-any-uk-equivalent-to-snorg-tees/answerer

So, think about the addictive nature of Farmville layered on top of Yahoo Answers… kind of cool huh? 

That is all. :-)  

Magnolia gingerbread pancakes!!!

3/15/2010

I love the wikipedia

3/15/2010

FLICKR Photos from This Week in Startups @ SXSW http://bit.ly/abSz6k #twist

3/14/2010

This Week in Startups @ SXSW 2010 – a set on Flickr http://bit.ly/abSz6k

Only 1,000 pending friend requests on foursquare…

3/14/2010

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English Bulldog

Hello, my name is Jason. Welcome to my blog on the interwebs. You can reach me on twitter @jason and by email at jason@calacanis.com. My Skype is jasoncalacanis, and my mobile phone is 310-456-4900.

I only pick up numbers I recognize, and in terms of emailing me, the best strategy is to write short, blunt and to the point requests. I can quickly respond to short messages, and many times I simply don't have the time to read five page pitches. In terms of taking meetings, I only do that after reviewing an actual product (not a business plan). So, the best time to ping me is when you have mockups or an alpha site. I don't read business plans, and I've never written one.

Other twitter accounts you can follow: Video Games, Open Angel Forum, and LAUNCH Conference & Newsletter

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